A moving Southern bildungsroman written with verve.
In Brittain’s (Marriage Roulette, 2006) novel, a callow Kentucky teen joins a traveling Christian revival group and learns quickly about the ways of the world.
Young Michael Boone is dropped off with his Aunt Elizabeth in Calhoun, Kentucky, while his parents look for work. Three years later, he’s all but abandoned there and anxious to earn some money. When his aunt takes him to a Christian revival headed by the charismatic Brother Daniel, an opportunity presents itself when the group needs a new truck driver. Initially, Michael is startlingly unworldly—he seems unaware that there are religious believers other than Christians—but he’s quickly disabused of his innocence by the troupe’s decadence. Brother Daniel is unreservedly lecherous, particularly toward very young girls, which Brittain unflinchingly depicts: “Brother Daniel had mastered the skill of touching interesting areas of the female form in such a manner that it was unclear, to those watching, whether it was blatant fondling or merely fatherly care.” Michael begins a romantic relationship with fellow teenager Ruth, one of Mother Daniel’s daughters, who’s desperate to run away and escape the sexual advances of her stepfather, Brother Daniel. Michael thinks about running away with Ruth, but he’s unsure if he truly loves her—and he’s also having sexual trysts with her mother. Then, one day, he’s presented with an uncommon opportunity to leave the revival and secure a better life. Brittain seems finely attuned to the absurdity that can be found in rank hypocrisy, and he expresses it in a manner that’s impressively reminiscent of Tom Wolfe’s work. Brother Daniel, for instance, is portrayed as an avaricious, racist pedophile who nonetheless strenuously preaches the gospel of Jesus. The revival introduces Michael to sexual libertinism, “racial vitriol,” unrestrained alcoholism, and bottomless avarice—but not the Lord. Indeed, if Michael learns anything at all on his trip, it’s how to lie. However, the author also tempers the salaciousness of Michael’s experience with an immersion in canonical literature—a gift bestowed by his hilarious but tantalizingly complex tutor, Bert. Overall, Brittain conveys his story with a literary realism that never devolves into cheap cynicism.
A moving Southern bildungsroman written with verve.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63393-510-5
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Koehler Books
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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